The task of testing wireless networks or devices containing many RF terminals (“terminals”) imposes great challenges. Any two terminals can communicate through a wireless communication channel. As opposed to cellular phone testing, in which the communication is limited between a terminal and a centralized base-station, the requirement here is for full switching between all terminals. In the case of mobile terminals (for example installed in vehicles) where communication channels experience temporally and spatially changing environments, such testing becomes even more challenging. A terminal may also be referred to as “device under test” (DUT).
RF emulators can support, at very high cost, RF switching between a very limited number of terminals, but cannot provide full matrix switching for large numbers of terminals. The number of required terminal pairs for N terminals, assuming half-duplex operation, is (N−1)2. For example, 3 terminals require 4 pairs, 100 terminals require 9801 pairs, and 200 terminals require 39,601 pairs for full switching. There is no RF-based implementation (RF channel based testing) that can come even close to emulate such large networks. Known RF channel based testing does not consider the location of terminals and the variation in such location. Switching is typically set once throughout a test period, meaning the terminals are considered fixed.
In view of the inherent limitations of known RF-based emulators which use RF based channel testing, there is a need for and it would be advantageous to have RF emulation systems and methods capable of handling networks with many (e.g. hundreds of) terminals.